DOOM 3
Total Playtime: 18.1 Hours
Finished 12 October 2026.Played the BFG Edition with no further modifications on Veteran difficulty; I know it technically dumbs down some of the horror elements, but the added content and improved compatibility was worth it. Also, I don't think the differences really impact my overall opinion of the game, which I'll go into more below. I played the first hour or so of the game on the Steam Deck, but aiming & movement didn't feel that great so I swapped back to PC which was much better. I played through the base game, Resurrection of Evil and Lost Mission in sequence, with the base game taking roughly around 12 hours of that time.
Also, for some reason taking Steam screenshots with F12 automatically disables achievements for some reason so Steam achievement history is a bit weird. It probably has something to do with the in-game console but F12 doesn't actually bring that up, so I'm not quite sure what causes this issue.
I kind of like how experimental DOOM is as a series. Looking past the first 2 games which were instrumental in revolutionizing early FPS games, DOOM 3 went a completely different direction with a heavy emphasis on atmospheric horror. In the early 2000s when this was originally released, massive strides in graphics and engine technology were being made, with id Tech 4 showcasing massive advancements in model and texture quality, lighting, and physics that make it unrecognizable from the simple, pixelated 2.5D graphics of DOOM2 and the blocky look of the QUAKE games.
Technologically and atmospherically, this game is beyond impressive. The contrast of lighting and shadow still looks decent today, and would be a mindblowing experience for anyone 20 years ago at release. A horror game was a very good choice to showcase these technologies, as the balance of light and shadow is paramount to the playing experience - or rather, the overwhelmingly dark atmosphere creates a tense, moody, and claustrophobic environment that perfectly sells the feeling of being trapped in a cramped, isolated research facility in the middle of nowhere. One gripe I have on this front is how few levels are actually set in Hell, because it gets boring walking around UAC facilities for 95% of the game with only 1 or 2 levels of different scenery.
Unfortunately, the way the visual design of the game actually ties into the gameplay is another matter entirely, and that's where my gripes with the game begin. While the atmosphere itself is top-notch, the level and encounter design in this game feels like it's comparatively stuck in the dark ages. Early on, you might get startled a couple of times by some well-placed jumpscares or zombies hiding in dark corners... but by the time you're halfway through the game and still running into the same ambushes - random hidden wall panels, zombies in random corners, imps leaping at you when you open a door, shit spawning right behind you when you enter a room - the gameplay loop gets REALLY old. Honestly, you could probably play this game looking backwards instead of forwards and have an easier time catching enemy spawns early; with such a heavy reliance on these cheap tricks, the visual atmosphere never quite translates to a scary game.
The enemies are all technically familiar faces - zombie soldiers, imps, etc. But it seems that in the rush to deliver new technologies, they forgot to texture all of them. Oops! So many of the demonic enemies have the same general design - naked bipedal monsters with pale skin, aggressive teeth & jaws that are difficult to distinguish each other. It doesn't help that over half of the enemies in most levels are exclusively the basic imps, even if the roster in its entirety is actually quite varied. Even the other more "distinct" enemy types like revanants, cacodemons, and mancubi are chromatically challenged. Behaviors are also very toned down - the pinkies (that are white, not pink) don't charge and just lumber around awkardly as easy target practice as an example.
The few boss fights in the game are generally quite underwhelming. The Vagary (spider boss) is just a simple damage trade in a blank room with some balls she can hurl at you. Hell Knights are just normal enemies and act like large imps. The Guardian of Hell is probably the coolest boss with an interesting blindness mechanic and these "sentries" it summons to find you, but it move so slowly that it's never truly a threat. The BFG-spamming Sabaoth was super tough; it's almost impossible to avoid taking massive damage in the tiny arena. Finally, the Cyberdemon was an absolute joke of a final boss - it moves too slowly and its attacks are too impotent to even scratch you if you have any semblance of reaction time. All you have to do is to charge the SoulCube up a few times on some spawning imps to get a painless kill.
On the player's side, gunplay and weapon design is also a minor disaster - note that some of this was changed (to be more lenient, apparently) in the BFG edition. Firstly, you get far, far too much ammo in this game. There aren't actually that many enemies in each level, yet the game keeps you fully stocked on ammo for all of your weapons almost all the time, to the extent that I was choosing my weapon based on the spare ammo laying around that I could use to just bring myself back up to a full supply after each fight. Regardless of what you choose, half of the weapons in the game (at least the SMG, Chaingun, and Plasma Gun) are all just slightly different variations of basic fully-automatic spam weapons. Aside from that, you get a useless peashooter of a Pistol and the absolute worst Shotgun of any game, which has a spread profile so large that it is still inconsistent at point blank range, taking anywhere from 1-3 shots to kill a spawning Imp. Nothing is particularly interesting about the Rocket Launcher, and the BFG is basically just a launcher that does more damage. Health and armor supply is also consistently plentiful (again, probably due to BFG Edition), and I rarely dipped below 125/100 for long.
These bizarre game design decisions make for a game that looks great, but feels sluggish once you get into actual combat and is mindnumbing in its complete lack of challenge. It's very playable and performs well, but the experience is just so flat and boring after a few hours that my motivation was almost entirely based on my desire to clear my backlog, and not out of genuine interest in the game itself.
The expansions available in the BFG Edition rerelease include the original's Resurrection of Evil (RoE) and the Lost Mission. For the most part, nothing has really changed except you get DOOM 3's equivalent of HL2's Gravity Gun, the Grabber. It's an awkward device that you can use to grab enemy projectiles and some props on the map to fling at enemies, but it's rather clunky and completely unnecessary when it's almost always more efficient to just use conventional methods. With that said, the big redemptive factor is the inclusion of the SSG, which is properly powerful and actually consistent enough to one-shot enemies. There are some interesting fights and a couple of new enemies but none of it is particularly significant; I guess from a lore perspective, you get to kill Betruger at the end of RoE. The Lost Mission is pretty much insignificant, just a few more levels to play through.
